Sheltering
by Andrina
Summary: Oneshot, IchiRuki. Set in the future, Ichigo and Rukia struggle to keep glimspes of a life together. Perhaps some things are meant to be waited for. [Written for the ichiruki LJ Community Fall Contest 2006]


A/N: A first attempt at Bleach fanfiction. Ichiruki is fast taking over my life. C & C appreciated!

**Sheltering  
By Andrina**

_Written for the ichiruki LJ Community Fall Contest 2006  
Theme: Shadows and secrets_

She comes to him one night, a tiny figure half-hidden in the shadows of his living room.

Ichigo doesn't see her at first; he is too busy running through the list of medical terminology he will have to use in his test the next day. It is the reason why he's decided to put in extra hours at the university that night, and it is the reason why she is now sitting quietly, awaiting his return.

Ichigo does not turn on the lights as he trudges through the door to his apartment. Instead, he chooses to maneuver carelessly around the dark shapes of his furniture, still thinking about his test. The door is thrown shut behind him noisily, and he begins to move towards his kitchen, no doubt looking for a drink of water.

She watches him for a few moments, and her eyes are hard and alert in the dark. Enough is enough, she thinks then, and so she makes her move.

"Ichigo," she says, and watches in satisfaction as he stiffens abruptly, jerking back into reality. Instinctively, his gaze swings sharply towards her. She manages a faint smirk, because she knows how terrible she must look. As expected, his eyes widen immediately at the sight of her, bloody and pale and small. Oh the blood, she thinks. He's looking at the blood.

"Aw, fuck," he mutters then, and tosses the groceries in his arm onto the carpet. He quickens his steps towards her at once, and keeps a long hard stare on her small form.

He is halfway to her when something must have shown in his face, because Rukia allows that smirk to curve into something softer and kinder and wearier. She holds up a hand to stop him. "Stop gaping," she tells him, shifting to pull herself out of the shadows. Then, for good measure: "Idiot."

Ichigo frowns. Is that all you can say, he thinks in annoyance. But her movement catches his eye, and for a moment all he can see are the bloody red stains she leaves on the wall behind her as she bends forward.

"Come on, Rukia," he says at last, and his voice is soft. Her brow is already furrowing into a tired annoyed frown when he moves closer, extending a hand towards her. He helps her up, and reluctantly, she lets herself sag against him in exhaustion.

"You better clean your bloodstains off my wall," he grumbles after a moment, and tightens his grip on her imperceptibly.

-

_There is so much blood in his Shinigami robes, Ichigo thinks. It is dry and brown and crusted and it smells awful. But it is a mark of the end of the war, and for this, Ichigo is willing to tolerate the stench of blood. "So this is it," he says, and runs his fingers over Zangetsu's hilt. _

_She nods. _

"_I won't see you again, will I?" he says. It is not much of a question. _

_He is young, so young. She smiles, and nods, and thinks that perhaps, it is for the best. _

"_See you," he tells her, turning slightly. He smiles (and makes sure she sees that smile). Then he leaves, because he knows it is what she wants. _

-

Rukia makes a terrible medical student, Ichigo thinks, and smirks.

He's put her on the couch: it is the nearest thing around and she's too tired to go anywhere else unless he were to carry her (and hell if she'd let that happen). Besides, he thinks, he's already got blood on his walls; he doesn't want it on his bed sheets too. So the couch it is.

She's already healed away most of the damage, Ichigo discovers, as he strips her of clothing. (He is most clinical, of course, and he leaves her breast bindings and underwear in place. He's not a pervert, he thinks primly, though he wished Rukia would loosen up on that damned death grip on his wrist.) Most of the injuries left are shallow cuts and half-healed lacerations, along with the odd purpling bruise.

He glances up at her quizzically. "Why didn't you just heal it all up?" he says, fingering one of the bruises on the pale skin of her stomach.

She shifts, and he watches as her eyes close tiredly. "I ran out of strength before I could heal it all," she says frankly. Her voice is soft and drained.

Ichigo sighs, and reaches for the first aid box.

She protests violently at first, as he tries to swipe her with the alcohol wipes and antiseptic cream. "Stop it!" she growls, wriggling out of way. Her eyes become hard and alert in the dark once more, and Ichigo smirks. "This stuff stings and it probably doesn't work on me anyway!"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I know," he tells her, and resumes his swiping. "But there's no harm trying." He knows he can't heal her, and she is too tired to heal herself. This is the closest it comes.

Eventually, she gives up, succumbing to her exhaustion. So she lies there in silence once more, her chest heaving slightly from the exertion. Ichigo ignores her palpable unhappiness, choosing instead to give her a crash course in human first aid. "This one's the alcohol wipe," he says absently, and holds it up in the dark to her. "It cleans your injuries and stuff." He pauses. "It might sting a little."

She indicates her understanding by hissing and stiffening when he touches it to one of her deeper cuts. "Bastard," she says at last, and closes her eyes. "Hurry up."

Ichigo ignores her and takes his time to explain. Halfway through the magical uses of antiseptic cream, however, he notices that her eyes are closed and her breathing is even. He doesn't think she's paying much attention to him anymore. So, he puts away his first-aid box, satisfied with the way he's gotten her all bandaged and clean. He decides that he should use this short moment of peace and quiet more productively.

Then, he watches her.

In the dark, he thinks, she is soft and waif-like, a pale sharp contrast to the dark blue of his couch. Half-covered by the shadows, and half-illuminated by the faint light from the streets, she is impossibly small and still, curled up against the upholstery of his couch.

Ichigo thinks, fleetingly and shyly, that he has missed her.

But it's almost nine, and Ichigo still has a test to take the next day. He rises up with her soiled black robes in hand (and takes a moment to finger the familiar material carefully). Then, in a few long strides, he's tossing them into his washing machine.

He leaves her on his couch, covering her semi-naked form with one of his oversized shirts. It envelops her slight frame entirely, and she is already pulling it close to her body by the time he enters his room.

-

_In a flash, he's running into his room, reaching for the badge that will push him out of his body and into action. Fuck, he thinks, he hasn't done this in weeks. Aren't the real Shinigami supposed to take care of this shit? Granted, it probably wouldn't take him more than five minutes, but still… this was such an inconvenience!_

_Then he's off, running towards the park. "Have fun, my boy!" hollers his father, waving cheerfully at him as he tears past. "Don't let the monsters bite!" _

_He grunts in reply. Fruitcake, he thinks. _

_It is night; the streetlamps light his way. For a moment, Ichigo revels in the sensation. It is like flying, he thinks. He's missed it, he acknowledges quietly. _

_He is almost upon the Hollow when he sees her. She is falling out of the sky again, and as before, she cuts through its mask with cool precision. She does not notice him._

_He thinks it is a cruel parody of their first encounter. _

-

Ichigo wakes up to the rather unpleasant sensation of someone pounding on his head.

For a moment, he is confused, jerking up in surprise. Then he sees Rukia standing beside him, grinning. "Wakey- wakey!" she all but twitters, not unlike the creepy way she used to speak as a transfer student in his class, and continues to thump on his skull madly.

He must have fallen asleep while studying, Ichigo thinks blearily. Then it registers that Rukia has turned his desk lamp off. In the dark, her eyes are bright and glinting, fixed upon him in an intent stare. He thinks she looks like a cat, a cat in search of a mouse to play with.

Ichigo holds back a shudder. "Go away," he says unthinkingly, managing a brief glance at the clock before he shoves his face into his arms. "It's four in the morning."

"I know," she sings into his ear. She is wearing his shirt; it comes down to below her knees. "Come on, Ichigo."

"Weren't you the one who was collapsing from exhaustion?" he grumbles in annoyance, his voice muffled by his shirt. "Go and get some sleep."

"I was not," she replies, and he imagines her scowling in displeasure. "I've already slept eight hours. Shinigami don't need _that_ much rest."

He grunts. She frowns. Then: "Stop ignoring me, Ichigo. Or else."

"Or else what?" he drawls lazily, his eyes already shut.

A second later, Rukia dives at him, sending his chair crashing to the ground. Ichigo wishes he had just kept his damned mouth shut.

"GODDAMNIT, BITCH!"

-

_His first reaction, surprisingly, is annoyance. "Bitch!" he barks, waving Zangetsu around. "You killed my monster!"_

_He has the pleasant opportunity to watch Rukia's eyes widen in shock and surprise and disbelief and something else that he can't quite decipher. "You…" she begins, and then she is gripping her sword hard, her eyes sharp and shocked._

_She is half-hidden in shadow, and terribly pale and drawn. He hasn't seen her in so, very, very long. So he watches her, as she opens her mouth and then closes it again._

_Ichigo thinks she looks like a ghost. He hates it. _

-

"Bitch?" she says, her eyes glinting. She's straddling him now, her skin pale and smooth in the darkness. He watches as her lips quirk up into an amused little smile.

Ichigo mutters another expletive under his breath.

She doesn't give him a chance to say anything else. In one languorous smirk, she leans down and pushes him deeper into the shadows and kisses him hard. His breath gets caught somewhere in his throat, and then he's pulling her down, pressing harder and closer.

His hands are gripping her soft slim thighs when Rukia breaks apart from him. They breathe together, hard and quiet and urgent. She regards him in silence for a moment, and then he is flattening his palms against her skin, sliding them up purposefully and avoiding the bruises, watching as something tenses in her slight frame. She makes a stifled sound of sorts, high and demanding, and then she's pressing herself against him, kissing him harder.

He forgets what he had wanted to say and thinks, instead, that this is better.

-

_He takes her home that day, and asks her to sleep. "You look like shit," he tells her, dragging her along through the shadowy streets. "Like crappy shit." _

_Unsaid is the fact that she knows she shouldn't have let herself be seen by him. Theirs is a chapter that has closed. Life goes on now. _

_So she doesn't want to, of course. She struggles and kicks and jabs and curses. Hellcat, he thinks in annoyance, and drags her home anyway. _

_But when Ichigo sees the way his father and sisters fuss over her, welcoming her back once again into their house (and Rukia stands, seemingly overwhelmed by the brightness and the warmth), he learns that what she wants isn't necessarily what she needs. _

-

An hour before dawn, she leads him to his bed and makes him lie down, pulling the covers up over him. He is exhausted, and she knows it, because it shows in that little smirk of hers that just won't go away. "Get some sleep," she tells him, smoothing the blankets over his bare chest. "You've got a test tomorrow."

"Bitch," he mutters drowsily, catching her hand as she draws away from him. "Weren't you supposed to be the injured tired one?"

Rukia smirks. "You're a hundred years too young to compete with me, boy," she teases. Then: "Goodnight, Ichigo."

He doesn't let her go.

"Ichigo?"

There is no reply. Rukia frowns.

"Ichigo!"

He grunts, and she could have _sworn_ that his grip on her wrist actually tightened. Rukia's frown melts into a scowl.

"Ichigo, if you don't let go right now…!"

Then she stops, and sighs. "Fine, maybe for a moment," she says, and her voice is quiet. "Stupid idiot," she adds, for effect. Then she takes a step forward, and sits herself down on the edge of his head.

There is a moment of hesitation, and then she is brushing sweaty locks softly from his face.

-

_It is the first of many times. He knows that they shouldn't, and she knows it too. (But his stupid fruitcake of a father seems to like it, grinning madly in encouragement.) _

_The first time, it is to the welcome of his family. But the second (and third, and fourth, and fifth…) time she comes, it is under the cover of darkness and secrecy. She seeks shelter and rest and food and comfort, and he gives it to her willingly. He knows she will give it all back in return. _

_Isshin knows, Ichigo thinks. He can tell by the way his father smiles broadly at him over breakfast. But Isshin never says a word, and neither does Ichigo. _

_By daybreak, she is gone. Ichigo learns that shadows bring the best secrets of all. _

-

By the time dawn comes around to chase the shadows away, Ichigo knows that (as always) a black butterfly will be fluttering away.

By the time he wakes up, he knows that there will be no bloodstains on his wall, no upturned chair, and no oversized T-shirt tossed across his bedroom. In the bright morning light, his room will be clean and void and he will be alone in his apartment.

It will be a new day, he thinks, and he will return to his daily life. As always. So he gets up, pausing only to run his fingers over the small indent on the edge of his bed.

He'll wait, Ichigo thinks. He's learnt that the best things are worth waiting for.

* * *


End file.
